Flea Market Magic (Southern Relics Cozy Mysteries Book 1) Read online

  Ebonee arrived at the same time the grandfather clock in the foyer chimed the first bell for nine o’clock. She supported Myrna on one side while a woman I guessed to be the doctor held onto the elderly lady’s other arm. Alarm bells clanged inside my head at the state of my friend. In such a short time, she’d gone from a slightly offbeat character to a woman unable to walk without assistance.

  She shuffled into the living room and made it to the chair near the table, landing on it with an added oomph. Her gray pallor kicked my worry up another notch and I knew the same guilt that gnawed on my gut affected Uncle Jo just as much. We’d been so concerned with the aftermath of her grandson’s murder on our family, we plumb forgot to take care of her, too.

  Myrna’s face brightened and her mouth formed a round O . “I feel slightly better sitting right here.” She reached a shaking hand toward the table and leaned forward. “It’s here, isn’t it? My ball’s here, I can tell. Let me see it.”

  All of us raced to stop her from touching anything until we could be sure she was ready. Since we’d made plans to wipe her memory of anything that happened, Granny Jo entered the room and floated to the afflicted woman.

  “I used to be the best healer in three counties in my day,” she explained to the doctor. “I might not have a degree, but I can usually tell what ails a person and what will cure them in two shakes of a stick.” The ghost poked and prodded our guest, laying a hand on her forehead and checking her pulse. She closed her eyes and concentrated as she examined our guest.

  “Why is your touch so cold and empty?” Myrna murmured. “And how come I can see the couch behind you? I can see clean through your body!” She whimpered a little in agitation.

  “Listen, she’s not going to endure a whole lot tonight,” the doctor warned. “If you don’t let her have access to the crystal ball and see if that strengthens her enough that my magic will work, then we’ll have to talk about alternative solutions”

  Ebonee scooted forward, her eyes flitting between the object on the table and Myrna. “I don’t know what you’re waiting for. You can clearly see she’s in need.”

  Dad held up his finger. “Just wait.”

  Granny Jo stopped touching our friend and floated back a little. “She’s connected to the ball itself. No doubt when she used it before, it attached itself to her in some metaphysical fashion, making her dependent on it unless the bond is completely broken.” She tapped her mouth while thinking and vanished from sight.

  Ebonee clicked her tongue in a very I-told-you-so fashion. “Then I don’t think there’s anymore time to waste.”

  Even though my dad, Uncle Jo, and I had gone through the plan more than once, he had to repeat it one last time. “I’ll unwrap the ball. Jo, you stand at the ready with your neutralizer to help remove her hands when the time is right. And Rue, you wrap the object up again in your cloth. Clear?”

  Everyone in the room answered along with us. Ebonee and the doctor placed supporting hands on Myrna, and Dad counted down. “Three. Two. One. Now!”

  With a flick of his fingers, the first black cloth untangled and fell away from the object. A second flourish of his hands made the second neutralizer pull away, revealing a glass orb with a blue-gray glow, pulsing and emanating as bright as the sun.

  Myrna drew in a rattled breath and held out both hands. Like a magnet drawn to another one, her body was dragged forward until she clasped the ball so hard her knuckles turned white.

  She closed her eyes and groaned with relief. “I’ve needed you, and now we’re together again. I won’t let you go this time.” A little pink returned to her cheeks and the grimace from before melted into a blissful smile.

  “Work fast, Doc,” Uncle Jo demanded under his breath through gritted teeth.

  The woman Ebonee brought with them frowned. “I’ll do what I can to throw up a barrier and cut off her link with the ball. But I can’t make any promises.”

  Myrna giggled like a young girl. “You can show me whatever it is you want,” she replied, participating in a conversation the rest of us couldn’t hear.

  The doctor struggled in her efforts. “I’ve got a spell almost ready to pull the trigger on, but we have to be prepared. When a drug addict gets that hit, it makes them better temporarily. But if that same person gets cut off cold turkey, it can have a horrible unpredictable effect. I won’t know which way things will turn out until we try.”

  “Don’t try, Beverly. Do ,” emphasized Ebonee.

  The doctor paused in her motions. “I don’t suppose y’all have any black tourmaline in the house?”

  Granny Josephine’s feet floated down from the ceiling, followed by the rest of her body. “I thought it might be helpful to use some stones for psychic protection, so I got these out of my personal stash. Hematite to shield against negative energy. Amethyst as a generally strong influence and to help dissipate the negativity. And here’s a lapis lazuli pendant we can put around her neck.” She emptied her hands of all the stones. “I’ve got more if we need them.”

  The doctor gazed at the ghost with respect. “We’ll start with these and see what happens.” She placed the stones in Myrna’s lap. “It would be better if she could hold them herself, but I don’t think that will be possible. I’m going to lay my hands on her shoulders and complete the spell I’ve built. When I say go, you enact your plan.”

  I stopped breathing all together for the next tense moment, watching the doctor’s every motion and then staring at Myrna’s face to see what would happen. The second the doc finished her spell, our friend’s body jerked and jumped as if she were having a seizure.

  “Go!” Beverly called out, and the three of us followed my father’s instructions with perfect precision.

  Myrna moaned loud and long, struggling to keep her hands around the crystal ball’s surface. Uncle Jo covered her frail and knotted fingers with the cloth and struggled to pull her away. About the time my hope began fading, my uncle won the battle and Dad yelled out my name for the final step.

  I covered the glass orb with the black cloth and held up my hands like I’d just wrestled a bull to the ground and won. With his part done, my father helped lay Myrna on the ground where the doctor and our ghost kin worked on saving her while he looked over their shoulders.

  Ebonee ignored the commotion with the patient and stared at the covered object on the table. “Since you have everything already set up, I think now might be the best time for me to have an opportunity to see what it can do for myself. That way, I’ll know how much I want to pay for it.”

  Uncle Jo maneuvered around the table to place his girth in the way and block Ebonee’s view of it. “Woman, after what you just witnessed, you think we’re going to sell that thing to anybody? It’s an absolute disaster waiting to happen.”

  “But your family made a deal for my help, and so far, I’ve gotten nothing but grief and refusal to uphold your end of the bargain.” She lost more and more of her composure the harder she pushed. “Either I get that crystal ball or you get absolutely nothing else from me or any member of the coven. You’ll be completely shunned from the magical community around here. But then again, I guess that’s the way you Jewells like it. Not having to answer to anyone but yourselves.”

  In the mass confusion of trying to help Myrna and arguing over whether or not Ebonee would get the crystal ball, my opportunity found me. With everyone occupied, nobody guarded the object, and I had free reign to finally do the one thing I knew would bring everything to an end.

  Casting a little of my fire magic over my hands as a light coating, I planned on limiting my contact to maintain control of the ball. From what I’d learned from research and Sarah’s story, I needed to maintain focus and never waver from whatever I wanted to know. If my intent wasn’t strong enough, then whatever powered the orb and talked to Myrna a few minutes ago might try to take over.

  Watching to make sure everyone else didn’t pay attention to me, I took a step closer and pulled the black cloth off the glass surfa
ce. “Show me how this all ends.”

  “Ruby Mae, what have you done?” My father’s voice echoed into the darkness that enveloped me as soon as I touched the crystal ball.

  Thick fog as black as night surrounded me on all sides, blocking my view of anything. Two points of blueish-gray light blinked into existence until they formed into the shape of a pair of eyes.

  “Your magic is strong,” a disembodied voice that was not quite human whispered around my head, first in one ear and then the other. “We will have much to trade, for you have power to spare and I have answers to show you.”

  It took a little effort to speak, but I fought against the riptide that flowed against me and tried to drag me away. “But I haven’t asked you anything.”

  “Haven’t you?” the voice teased. “You may not have said the words, but I know the future you’d like to see. Let me in and I will show you.” The last statement caressed and cradled my very soul, making me feel safe and secure. And willing to give up whatever I had in order to keep feeling the same way.

  My hands hurt, and I lifted them up to gaze at the flames engulfing them. The little pain cleared my head, and I argued with the voice. “But I don’t want to give you anything. If I’m in control, then you have to do what I want you to do.”

  Whatever spoke to me rumbled with low laughter. “That is not how this works, child, as you will soon find out. But if you must live with the illusion that you can choose, then I will strike a bargain with you. You feed me the power you deem me worthy of and I will share with you a vision of equal value. Deal?”

  As an experienced bargain hunter, I tried to think about the terms carefully, but the thick fog clouded my judgment. The longer I stayed in this place, the more I might succumb to the will of the voice. “Deal.”

  Concentrating as hard as I could, I set up a shield around me and siphoned off a fraction of my power. Cupping my hands together, it glowed and sparked like embers of a campfire. “I want to know what will happen to my uncle.”

  The fog reached out and covered my hands with its thick darkness. When it retreated, no sparks remained. “And now for my part of the bargain.”

  The black mist around me evaporated, and I stood on a patch of green grass with white stones surrounding me. It took me a moment to recognize the family cemetery on the edge of our land. Uncle Jo’s name was chiseled into the white marker in front of me, and I dropped to my knees to read it as fast as I could. “Josephus Daniel Jewell. Family. ”

  “Did he die from old age or get arrested? This is not a clear answer,” I called out to the voice but received no reply.

  The scene dissipated and blew away like a leaf on the wind, replaced by four walls, a stove, and a table. Our table inside our kitchen. The ghost cooking over the burner hummed to himself while he flipped a pancake for the little boy sitting at the table.

  “Do you want syrup or jam on your next stack, kiddo?” the ghost of my uncle asked the child.

  “Syrup, Grampy Jo,” the boy giggled. The noise of his joy echoed around me as the scene faded into nothingness.

  Satisfied with the outcome, I smiled to myself. “Thank you. That was all I needed.”

  A tug at the center of my chest kept me from leaving. “But I can show you more. Much more. Perhaps you would like to see what will become of your love?”

  A wisp of smoke grew into the body of Luke who looked back at me with a deep sadness in his eyes. He pulled out the leather cord from around his neck and took it off. The bright red gem on the end of it glistened like fresh blood. Dropping the pendant, he turned away from me.

  “Luke, no. What is happening?” I screamed, trying to run after him but finding myself unable to move.

  The voice switched to my other side. “You wanted to know how all this ends. But life is full of beginnings and endings. Which one do you want to know about?”

  My chest ached as an invisible force dug into me and scooped out my insides, replacing what was taken with a pleasant numbness. The scene changed over and over again, showing me short clips of what might come in my life. A sewing machine. A pirate’s flag blowing in the breeze. An iridescent egg with scales about to crack open. Nothing was definitive enough for me to understand what I saw.

  “Give in, and I will tell you all,” seduced the voice. “It won’t hurt in the long run as long as you feed me.”

  A pinpoint of light pierced the shadows and a high-pitched voice I could have sworn I knew called out my name. “Ruby Mae Jewell, you get your behind back here right now or I will haunt you until the children of your great-grandchildren are grown!”

  A hand I couldn’t see touched my shoulder. “Let go, butter bean. I’ve got you.”

  The fog lifted, and for a second, I envisioned the living room inside the family home.

  “You cannot be free of me,” the strange voice rasped. “Now that we have tasted what the other can give, you will be mine or you will perish.”

  The light of the eyes extinguished, and I watched Ebonee struggle to keep a black cloth over the ball. My uncle braced his foot on the table and pulled with all of his might on my hands wrapped with similar fabric until each one broke free of the glass surface. We crashed to the floor, almost knocking the table over.

  It took me several minutes to discern that everything around me was real and not those eerie visions. I regretted my request to be pinched when Uncle Jo and my ghostly great-grandmother took too much advantage out of spite.

  “You scared us,” my father said. “Why would you do such a fool thing as that?”

  I clutched my chest over the point that ached. “I really thought if I was prepared enough, I could control it. I was definitely wrong.”

  Even with the rescue from my family, something still didn’t feel right. A pulse of power caused the black cloth over the crystal ball to flutter, and I felt the pull to yank it off completely and give in all over again. I’d used the object to answer a specific question about my uncle’s future, but found a bigger and more useful answer.

  “Somebody cover that thing up better than it is. I can feel its influence even now.” Dizziness hit me, and I did my best to stay upright. “I think I understand how Myrna felt. Is she okay now?”

  Ebonee watched me with concern rather than focusing on the ball. “Beverly thinks she’ll recover with some help. She’s taken her to her office right now to make sure, and I’ll be going there soon to take Ms. Miller home.” She stood up and contemplated some puzzle in her head. At the last second, she stuck out her hand. “I want to thank you, Ruby Mae. I think you may have just saved me from myself.”

  I accepted her offer and shook on it. “You’re welcome. Does that mean I don’t have to join the coven?”

  The leader’s haughty attitude returned. “I will be contacting you in the near future to let you know the date of your initiation. A bargain’s a bargain once a deal is struck.”

  Her last words stung, and I heard the same words echoing inside my head in a raspy voice. “I made a huge mistake—”

  “Touching that blasted thing?” Uncle Jo finished, “No kidding. Don’t ever do that again.”

  “No, you didn’t let me finish.” I tried to sit upright. “I made a huge mistake but the payoff may be big enough to make up for it.”

  Dad crouched down in front of me, brushing my hair away from my face. “What do you mean?”

  I grasped his hands in mine. “I know who killed Croy Miller.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  B arney Whittle followed behind our truck, pulling into the same driveway we did marked by the white wooden sign with big black letters spelling Psychic painted on it. Dad had stayed behind to guard the crystal ball with Granny Jo until he could make it out to our family safe and put it back in the vault. Uncle Jo and Officer Whittle followed right behind me as I walked with slow steps up to the front door to the trailer.

  I didn’t even have to knock before Jackson stood in front of us. “I was wondering who it would be that would come get me in the end.
I guess I’m not surprised.” He moved to let us file inside.

  “Do you know why we’re here?” Uncle Jo asked.

  The bald man nodded. His frail frame appeared more fragile than before. “Follow me, and I’ll show you why I did what I did.”

  Instead of going into the room where we’d been before, he shuffled down the narrow hallway and into a room darkened by drawn curtains. Marilyn lay under blankets, her wheezing breaths fighting for air. We circled around her, trying to stay as quiet as possible.

  “Have…you…told…them…?” she struggled.

  Jackson planted a kiss on her forehead and begged her not to speak. “That’s what I’m doing right now, my Mary.”

  Barney cleared his throat. “Sir, we don’t have to take your statement in here. Clearly, your wife needs her space to heal.”

  “She’s why you’re all here in the first place. But I’m starting in the middle. Let me go back to right after you left us, Jo.” Jackson ran his fingers through his wife’s hair. “If I could go reverse time and change that day, I would a thousand times over.”

  Uncle Jo’s brow furrowed. “If I brought this on the both of you, I will never forgive myself.”

  Marilyn’s hand jutted out from under the blanket and held onto my uncle’s. “Not…your…fault. We…didn’t know,” she croaked with effort.

  Jackson took his wife’s hand and placed it back under the covers. “When she touched that crystal ball, everything we’d planned out for her last days evaporated with the vision she saw in that few seconds she used it. See, Mary had found out she had breast cancer long before you brought that thing into our house. Surgery and medicine didn’t work, so we were planning on closing things up and traveling with the little bit of time we had left.

  “But when she saw that her future would end right here in this room, she gave up. Whatever force fuels that infernal thing, it needs to be stopped.” He choked on a sob and covered his mouth.